The incredible, true story of one man’s involvement in the so-called New Diplomacy

Friday, September 18, 2009

Kurt Campbell's Meeting With Akitaka Saiki

Kurt Campbell met with Akitaka Saiki on September 18, 2009. During the meeting, Saiki said that Prime Minister Hatoyama would not be able to rein in the bureaucracy. Saiki proclaimed boldly that if the DPJ tried to crush the pride of the bureaucrats, the DPJ would fail. On the other hand, Saiki had nothing but praise for Katsuya Okada, the new foreign minister. According to Saiki, Okada was “very intellectual” and he “understood the issues.” (FYI: Okada is himself a former bureaucrat. That is the reason, presumably, why Saiki was so effusive towards him).

Despite the recent musings of Prime Minister Hatoyama, according to Saiki, the relationship between America and Japan was already an equal one. Saiki had his own theory of why Hatoyama said he wanted to “transform” the alliance into an equal relationship. Saiki theorized that the DPJ wanted to project an image of power by showing the world that they had reined in the bureaucracy and moved the country in a new direction that challenged the U.S. Saiki called this idea stupid and said, “They will learn.”

In Japan, there is a saying, “The nail that sticks up must be hammered down.” In his statements, Saiki seems to be implying that the DPJ would get hammered down for its policies of challenging the bureaucrats and America. But instead, something else very different happened.

Presumably, by investigating the secret agreements, the DPJ intended to pressure America into doing…something. I’m still not exactly sure what the DPJ wanted us to do. It is possible that the DPJ decided to pressure America solely because I told them to. It is possible that America “made” me tell the DPJ to pressure America so America could use that pressure an excuse to retaliate and go after Toyota.

Japan may have had its own reasons for agreeing to this scheme. Perhaps what Japan really wanted was for my government to tell me all sorts of terrible secrets that they wanted concealed. Once I discovered this information, I would then try to tell the world about this information. At this point, my government had a choice – whether to allow me to tell the world the truth or whether they would try to torture me into submission (they chose torture).

Were the public to find out about me and the information I have obtained, this would effectively end the so-called American Century, it would end the era of military interventionism that has killed so many innocent people and has practically bankrupted our nation, it would cause a drastic rethink on the amount of money we spend on our military, it would bring a new age of accountability to the world as governments could no longer murder people and expect that no one would find out who was truly responsible, and it would transform the way everyone looks at history and the world and in doing so, it would allow both policymakers and the public to create new policies based on a more accurate understanding of the world.